We’re all familiar with wellness Instagrammers. They’re the ones making healthy meals that look too delicious to actually be good for you, the ones who somehow find time to work out eight days per week, who never drink alcohol, and who genuinely enjoy eating salads every day (?!?!?).
Well, Edward Lane, a Men’s Health UK editor, is familiar with them too. He created a hilarious parody account, Wellness Ted, to poke fun at the world of influencers on Instagram, which, as he puts it, “takes itself way too f*cking seriously.” If his goal is to make people step back and look more critically at some of the stuff healthy bloggers post, he’s definitely succeeded—just ask his 20K followers.
But Wellness Ted isn’t just amazing because it’s hilariously spot-on (the six-pack abs, the novel-length captions detailing the health benefits of each ingredient in a meal), but also because it’s actually making an important point about separating reality from Instagram.
As the boyfriend of an Instagram celeb (he dates Amy Hopkinson), Lane knows what really goes into those perfectly curated blogs. Many of his posts explain what happens behind the scenes, emphasizing that what you see doesn’t always reflect reality.
Even though we love that wellness bloggers motivate us to do all those healthy things we’re tempted to avoid, it’s refreshing to have someone like Wellness Ted in our feed to remind us life’s not all about abs and macronutrients. Sometimes it’s about putting on comfy athleisure and having a few beers.
Are you suffering from type 2 diabetes? Well, it’s a problem that has bothered me for years. I’d been diagnosed as having borderline diabetes and then, about 10 years ago, the doctor said my sugar levels were too high and I now had diabetes. I followed the instructions of the doctors but the medications never seemed to be working for me. It was a painful period but it also forced me to go on a journey that has totally changed my life. I’d read several articles and uncovered the real cause of type 2 diabetes. Surprising, it actually has nothing to do with your uncontrolled blood sugar and increasing belly fat. Instead, a 2018 study by a team from Washington University School of Medicine found out that planetary health is the real cause of the agonies that you and me have been suffering. Their research shows a significant link between PM2.5 (particulate matter which is a complex mixture of extremely small particles and liquid droplets) air pollution and diabetes globally. Based on their findings, around 3.2 million new cases of diabetes in 2016 were due to dangerous air pollution (Bowe, et al., 2018). It is believed that your body is treating the invisible PM2.5 inside your body as foreign and sends immune cells to the invaded tissues, causing inflammation. Scientists consider this cell inflammation is what leads to insulin resistance and hence diabetes (He, et al., 2017). The figures below show the rapid incline of PM2.5 in 1940 matches exactly when diabetes spiraled out of control.
Figure 1: Diabetes prevalence % from 1940-2010Figure 2: PM2.5 levels in the USA from 1751-2006
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Bowe, B., Xie, Y., Li, T., Yan, Y., Xian, H., & Al-Aly, Z. (2018). The 2016 global and national burden of diabetes mellitus attributable to PM2· 5 air pollution. The Lancet Planetary Health, 2(7), e301-e312.
He, D., Wu, S., Zhao, H., Qiu, H., Fu, Y., Li, X., & He, Y. (2017). Association between particulate matter 2.5 and diabetes mellitus: A meta‐analysis of cohort studies. Journal of diabetes investigation, 8(5), 687-696.
November 14th is World Diabetes Day as declared by the International Diabetes Federation and the World Health Organization. The date – November 14th each year – is a significant date in the history of the disease, it is the birthday of Frederick Banting. In 1922 Banting, and a group of scientists discovered insulin…the life-giving juice we diabetics require.
I live with this disease literally every second of every day and sometimes forget that most people have the luxury of going about their day without a life-support device attached at the hip and a constant data stream of personal blood sugar data. What has become second nature for me is a foreign concept for many. In the spirit of World Diabetes Day and diabetes awareness month, I’m sharing some thoughts on the topic.
So, what do the mechanics of managing type 1 diabetes look like today, in 2019, almost 100 years after insulin was discovered?
To answer this question I’m breaking down the components and describing what they are and…aren’t.
Insulin
What it is:
Effective treatment for type 1 diabetes
A potent drug
Sensitive to high and low temperatures
Available via vial or “pen” and recently – inhaled
What it is NOT:
A cure for type 1 diabetes
Cheap
Insulin Pump
What it is:
A device to replace multiple-daily-injections
A device with programmable settings and memory capacity
Tubeless or tubed
A piece of technology with the ability to fail
What it is NOT:
An automatic carbohydrate counter
Waterproof
Cheap
Continuous Glucose Monitor
What it is:
A system to eliminate finger pricks for blood sugar readings
A three-part system consisting of a site (subcutaneous wire injected once every 10 days), a transmitter placed on top of the site’s electrodes, and a receiver which acts as the user interface to the data.
A piece of technology with the ability to fail
What it is NOT:
An automatic carbohydrate counter
A hands-off monitoring device
Cheap
For type 1 diabetics, improved diabetes technology is just a stepping stone towards a cure. Even with these devices onboard we are still faced with hundreds of diabetes-related decisions every day. That buzz in my pocket from the CGM is helpful but also mentally straining and counting every single carbohydrate ever, every single day feels overwhelming at times. The injections are manageable, but it’s never just about that instantaneous poke – it’s about the skin irritation that can linger weeks after pulling a site out (still have one of those on my stomach) or the wardrobe hassles or the toddlers inquisitively pulling on the tubing.
And, as with all technology, there is always a chance of failure. Batteries can die, electronics can accidentally get wet, CGM readings can be skewed by blood at the site, insulin delivery can be occluded. Backup plans are a non-negotiable part of living with diabetes.
I try to limit the negativity diabetes creates because I’ve learned that life is so much sweeter when you focus on the positive – but it doesn’t mean living with the disease is easy. It’s tough and, at the moment, a life-long marathon.
Health and Fitness 9 